


Tripped Up

by prozacplease



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst and Humor, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Incest, M/M, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-05
Updated: 2012-10-05
Packaged: 2017-11-15 16:32:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/529303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prozacplease/pseuds/prozacplease
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki has discovered a new skill, one that doesn't involve magic. He decides to try it out on an unsuspecting Thor, with some unintended consequences for both of them. Then they have to lie about what happened, so Odin won't get mad at Loki for using deception in a fight. Takes place several years before the events depicted in the film.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tripped Up

Thor should have questioned his brother’s willingness to accompany him to the training arena. Their last visit there had resulted in bruised ribs and some tears that Loki still denied had ever been shed. But Thor was just too excited to question Loki’s possible ulterior motives.

“Are you not afraid to spar after what happened last time?” Thor asked as he and Loki walked down the corridor together.

“You are the one that should be afraid, brother,” Loki said, not seeming to notice Thor’s playful grin.

“I am teasing you,” Thor said. “But if you cry again, I promise to keep it a secret from Father as I did before.”

“I do not know what you are speaking of,” Loki said.

“You sound as though you do.”

“Are you trying to goad me into something?” Loki asked. “Because I do not think I need any help in that respect.”

Thor chuckled. “Not at all. I just enjoy your idle fuming. Like a storm cloud threatening to rain, but never making good on its promise.”

“Oh, just you wait,” Loki said with a snort.

They arrived at the arena, a circular spans of soft, fine dirt. Warriors of Asgard went to train there, and it was occasionally used by a pair of unruly brothers to settle arguments unable to be won by words or Odin’s firm hand.

Thor strode ahead to the center of the arena while Loki hung back, wrapping his hands and wrists tightly with strips of fabric he had brought along. He doubted the fabric would offer much reinforcement, if he got any hits in at all, but it was worth a try.

“Why are you bothering?” Thor called from where he stood.

Loki just rolled his eyes. Never mind Thor. He just had to bide his time. All the practicing in secret would pay off today if he could manage to keep calm and not get flustered.

That was easier said than done with Thor. He had a way of getting to Loki, even when he was just kidding.

Once satisfied with his wrappings, Loki walked over to meet Thor. He had rid himself of his cloak and tunic, leaving on only his pants and tall boots. Loki looked at him, not amused.

“Do you really have to partially disrobe for this?” he asked.

“No, but I know it intimidates you,” Thor said.

Loki sighed. “You are demented.”

“Do not deny that you enjoy this.”

A small smile crept across Loki’s mouth and Thor laughed again. They knew each other as brothers, but yes, he did enjoy it. And Thor would probably enjoy it if Loki did the same. Their relationship had changed when they were teenagers. That seemed like a long time ago.

It was a secret that made Loki feel ill and excited at the same time. Instinctually, it was wrong. But incestuous couples were not uncommon in Asgard, especially among the nobility.

“I think I am going to keep my clothes on, however,” Loki said.

“As you wish. Do you think you are going to best me today?” Thor asked, shoving at Loki’s shoulder.

Loki took a step back, laughing a little. “Do not underestimate me, Thor.”

That laugh. Thor wished he could make Loki laugh more often. Even more smiles would be an improvement. Loki was always so moody, preferring to spend his time reading to walking the grounds alone, even in the dead of the bitter Asgardian winters.

Thor often interpreted Loki’s desire for solitude as sadness and went to great lengths to try and cheer him up. Their current interaction was one of those attempts. Thor had hoped that Loki would be thrilled he asked him to spar rather than one of his more aggressive friends.

Well, Loki hadn’t exactly jumped up and down, but he seemed surprised in a good way. And he said yes, so Thor was going to count this as a success.

“Oh, I am not worried,” Thor said. “I am rather good at sizing you up.”

Loki pushed Thor hard with both hands, but he didn’t budge. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“You are short,” Thor said. He grinned. This always got Loki going.

“I am younger than you!” Loki cried, shoving at Thor again.

“And shorter,” Thor finished.

Loki threw the first punch with a snarl. Thor dodged it and swung back, the blow hitting Loki solidly in the side.

“Damn you, Thor,” Loki spat.

Thor just laughed. Making his brother angry was kind of fun. “Say yield if you want to stop,” he said. “Those are the rules.”

“I know the rules, you imbecile,” Loki said, moving out of the reach of Thor’s crushing swing.

Thor came toward Loki, who backpedalled so fast he almost fell down.

“My, you are fearful of me,” Thor said. “This is not going to be much fun if you refuse to fight.”

“You are just going to beat me senseless when you get hold of me,” Loki said. “I see no point in standing still and taking it.”

Thor lunged and Loki barely managed to slip away from him. At least Loki had swiftness on his side. Thor was bigger than Loki and more powerful, but he was also considerably slower.

Loki’s heart was beating hard already. He didn’t know why he was so scared. They had done this many times before, although not in recent months. Thor had given him countless scrapes and bruises when sparring, but nothing serious. And Thor always apologized if he knew he had hurt his younger brother.

It was just a game. Juvenile roughhousing. So why the anxiety?

Thor almost caught him again and Loki turned to run away. He tripped over his own boot and fell hard in the dirt. He rolled onto his back and tried to get up, but the seconds wasted allowed Thor to throw himself upon him.

The impact of his older brother’s heavy body crashing into him knocked the wind out of Loki.

“You are crushing me,” Loki managed, flailing in an attempt to get away.

Thor just grinned and hit at his brother. Not hard, but enough to further incite his rage.

“Stop it!” Loki snarled, punching Thor in the jaw.

Thor’s head jerked to one side and Loki feared he had really hurt him. Wishful thinking.

“You actually laid a decent blow on me, Loki,” Thor said in mock amazement.

“I will do it again if you want,” Loki said as venomously as he could, struggling underneath Thor’s weight.

He was solidly trapped, unable to move his legs because Thor was sitting on them. Thor grabbed hold of Loki’s skinny wrists and pinned them to the ground, high above Loki’s head. When Thor leaned forward, Loki could feel something pressing against his thigh.

“That hurts!” Loki cried.

“Do you yield?” Thor asked. “You have to say it.”

“No,” Loki growled, still struggling.

But it felt like his shoulders were going to come out of their sockets. The muscles in his arms were burning from hyperextension.

“Are you sure?” Thor asked.

He saw the pain on Loki’s sweaty, dirt-smeared face, but he knew very well that it could be a lie. That was his brother’s oldest trick, the one he rarely fell for anymore. Besides, having Loki immobilized and under his control was kind of exciting.

“I am sure,” Loki said, trying to focus on something other than the pain.

He needed to concentrate.

“I can sit on you all day if this is what you want,” Thor said. “I don’t know how you are going to get out from underneath me.”

Loki looked up past Thor’s head, with the blond hair hanging down around his face, and locked his eyes on the ceiling. He grasped it right away, the little slippery part of him, deep inside his mind, that he had found completely by accident. Months of practice had allowed him to find it immediately, but getting it to do what he wanted was another difficulty.

“Can you not breathe?” Thor asked.

Loki was making a very strange face and he thought that maybe he really was crushing him. In the next instant, Thor was sitting on the ground and not on Loki. Thor’s head jerked up to see Loki standing a few feet away.

Loki laughed despite the wave of nausea that rolled through him and the sickening spinning in his head. Thor’s face was priceless.

“How did you—?” Thor asked, getting to his feet. He was still half hard.

Loki took a step back. “I have been practicing,” he said.

“Practicing what? Magic?” Thor sounded angry. “That is deception. Dishonorable in battle.”

“No, not magic at all,” Loki said, pointing to his head. “It is up here.”

“You still deceived me,” Thor said.

“How did I deceive you? I used a skill of mine, not a trick,” Loki said evenly. “You have your strength, I have this now. I did not even hurt you with it. I simply escaped.”

Thor could see Loki’s reasoning, but he still didn’t like it. Something about it seemed wrong. He hadn’t liked the feeling of Loki suddenly disappearing from his grasp.

“Are you sure you did not use magic?” Thor asked.

“I am sure, Thor, but I cannot explain it. I found it while I was practicing magic. But it is not the same thing,” Loki said.

“Have you told Mother and Father? This is all very strange. I have never heard of an Asgardian being able to do this,” Thor said. The anger was gone from his voice.

Loki gave a small shake of his head and brushed back the hair that had fallen in his eyes during their tussle. “No,” he said. “I have not showed this to anyone except you. Mother would praise me in passing, but Father would scold me for learning trickery rather than skills he deems more useful. You know this, Thor.”

Thor did know this. Their father loved them, but he was hard on Loki when it came to the warrior skills they were supposed to have both been born with. Loki only had the skills in weapons that he had been taught. He had no talent for wielding a mace, sword, or spear. But he knew spells Thor had never heard of, much less had the patience and steady hand to make work.

However, Odin had never had time for magic. He thought it was a deceptive and cowardly thing to practice in a fight, and he told Loki this every time he found out his younger son had learned a new spell. Lately, Loki had stopped talking about his studies completely.

Loki was hurt by it, but Thor tried to remind him that Father just believed his mind could be used for other skills, and to not take it personally. But Loki managed to take everything personally.

“Show it to me again,” Thor said.

Before Loki could protest, Thor was charging him. It was perform now or get run over. This time, Loki surprised himself. He disappeared and reappeared faster than ever before, sticking his leg out and tripping Thor in the process.

Thor managed a decent face plant. It served him right for not giving Loki a chance to prepare, but when Thor got up, Loki saw that his nose was bleeding. Loki was too nauseated to laugh. Using this newfound skill twice in a row had not been a good idea.

“Oh, Thor,” Loki said. “I am so sorry.”

He went over to where Thor had discarded his tunic and picked it up.

Thor snatched the tunic out of Loki’s hand and pressed it to the blood that had run out of his nose and down his mouth and chin. The tunic was made out of nice fabric, with fine embroidery around the collar and cuffs, but the blood would come out of it with cold water.

The nausea gripped Loki again, stronger this time. He turned away and retched, but nothing came up. The second time he did it so hard he choked. However, it was dry too.

Thor took the tunic away from his face. “What is the matter with you?” he asked, not sounding too concerned.

Loki stayed in his semi-doubled over position. “It is from the teleporting,” he said. “Something about it makes me sick. Not to mention that I did it twice in a row this time.”

He felt something running out of his nose and put his fingertips to the space above his lips. His fingers had blood on them. The sweat sprang up on his back.

“You should sit down,” Thor said, patting the ground beside him.

Loki obeyed, dropping to his knees and crawling the few feet over to where Thor was. He felt terrible, not only physically, but for tripping Thor. That had been deceptive, if anything else.

“Are you going to be all right, Loki?” Thor asked. His voice was worried now. He gave his tunic to Loki and made him press it against his face.

“I believe so,” Loki said, voice muffled by fabric. “I think I strained myself.”

“I imagine that must take a lot of strength,” Thor said.

Loki nodded. “It does,” he mumbled. He felt incredibly tired.

“You must be careful,” Thor said, dabbing at his own nose to see if it was still bleeding. “You do not know exactly what you are doing. You could kill yourself. From overexertion or something.”

“Since when did you become so concerned?” Loki asked.

Thor frowned. “When have I ever not cared about you?”

“Forgive me,” Loki said, instantly regretting his nastiness. “I feel so ill.”

“It is all right,” Thor said.

He put an arm around Loki and pulled him to his side. Loki allowed his body to conform to Thor’s side and the embrace of his arm as best it could. His heart hurt. He could probably run Thor through with a sword and be forgiven for it. 

Loki wished he had that ability to excuse wrongdoings and put them out of his mind. 

“I think I should go lie down before dinner,” Loki said.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to sit with Thor, but he was exhausted. And he still felt somewhat sad.

“Good idea,” Thor said and moved to stand up.

He grabbed Loki’s arm and hauled him to his feet with no effort at all. Loki stumbled with the force of getting helped up.

“Can you walk?” Thor asked, keeping hold of Loki’s upper arm.

“Yes,” Loki said. “You can let me go.”

He stood there, swaying a bit, while Thor grabbed his cloak. The ground felt tilted to one side, causing Loki to walk in a crooked line as they left the arena. Thor held Loki’s arm to keep him from running into corners that seemed to jump out at him, but let go when they passed by anyone. Loki was adamant that he didn’t want their parents to find out about what had happened and Thor agreed to help him keep it a secret.

“But what if you are still not feeling well at dinner tonight?” Thor asked. “They will suspect mischief.”

“Well, I am the God of Mischief, after all,” Loki said sarcastically. “Thank you for that one, Father.”

“I am being serious, Loki. I am worried about you. You cannot walk properly,” Thor said.

“I will be fine. I just need to sleep a while,” Loki insisted. “I am sure of it.”

After a nerve-wracking walk through the palace, they arrived at Loki’s quarters.  Loki almost fell over when Thor let go of him for a moment to open the door. Loki just laughed when Thor caught him around the waist.

“I am glad you think this is amusing, but I do not,” Thor said.

A guard down the hall was giving them a strange look. Thor saw this and made a drinking motion with his hand and pointed at his brother. The guard smiled and nodded.

Loki crawled into bed, boots and all, and kicked at Thor when he tried to take them off for him. Not too keen on getting a bloody nose again, Thor let him be.

“What are you doing?” Loki asked when Thor went to the other side of the bed and got in with him.

“I am going to keep an eye on you,” Thor said.

“It will be a waste of time. I am just going to sleep.”

“Then do just that and I will watch.”

Loki rolled over, his back facing Thor, and pulled a blanket up over his shoulders. At least when he closed his eyes, there was not the unsettling distortion of the floor and walls. For a while, he was still in a cold sweat from his upset stomach, but that soon subsided and he fell asleep.

Thor sat and flipped through some of the books that Loki had beside his bed, but he had never been one for reading. And they weren’t even books that contained interesting stories. One was a tome of history about the Bifrost; the other wasn’t even in a language that Thor could read.

He was soon growing tired himself. There was another solid four hours until they would be called to the Great Hall, so he decided to lie down as well. He laid close to Loki, putting an arm around him under the covers. Loki was hardly warm, but that was normal. His skin always felt cooler than Thor’s and his hands were icy at their warmest.

Loki stirred and made a noise in the back of his throat, but didn’t wake up fully. He settled against Thor as he did when they were sitting on the dirt floor of the arena. Thor nestled his face against the back of Loki’s neck, failing miserably at avoiding getting his nose tickled by his brother’s ink colored hair. 

 

When Thor woke up, he wasn’t sure what time it was. Loki was no longer beside him. His heart jumped for reasons he didn’t exactly understand.

“I am surprised you fell asleep,” Loki said.

Thor looked across the room. Loki was drying his face off after splashing it with water from the basin that sat on his bureau. He had changed out of his plain tunic and fitted doeskin pants into a more formal version of the same outfit, completed with a cape and nicer boots.

They were expected to dress nicely for meals. Thor didn’t understand this rule and often disobeyed it, much to the chagrin of their mother. But Loki always took his time on his appearance. He was very particular about those things, something else Father gave him grief about.

“How do you feel?” Thor asked, sitting up but not getting out of bed.

“I feel fine. My head still pains me, but that is nothing I cannot hide,” Loki said, running his hands through his hair while looking in a mirror.

“As long as you are not crashing into walls,” Thor said.

“No, the floor has righted itself,” Loki replied. “You should hurry. You will be late for dinner.”

“I care not,” Thor grumbled, dragging himself off Loki’s bed. “Go ahead without me.”

Loki said nothing and left the room, taking long strides down the hallway. Thor followed a few moments later, but went in the opposite direction toward his own quarters. He needed to put a shirt on, first of all. And then probably wash the dried blood off his face.

To his dismay, he found that the bridge of his nose and jaw were badly bruised. From when he fell and from when Loki had punched him. The skin wasn’t really swollen, but it was tender and it was nothing he could hide. Why hadn’t Loki said anything to him about it?

He carefully wiped the dried blood from under his nose and chin, glad Loki wasn’t around to see him wince a little. Then he changed hastily and didn’t bother with his hair. It never did what he wanted it to anyway.

Loki and his parents were already seated when he arrived in the Great Hall, but they hadn’t been served yet. Loki’s eyes followed him carefully as he walked over and seated himself, as he always did.

“My word, Thor, what happened to your face?” their mother asked from her place across from him at the table.

“Loki hit me when we were sparring today,” Thor said.

It was mostly a lie, but he had to. He couldn’t tell their parents that Loki had tripped him, even if it had been without teleporting first.

“What have I told you two about—”

“Loki did what?” Odin asked, cutting off his wife. It was obvious he had only been half listening.

Now that their father was part of the conversation, Thor could see Loki visibly stiffen.

“Loki punched me squarely in the face today,” Thor repeated. “While we were sparring.”

“No trickery?”

“No, it was a legitimate blow,” Thor said.

Odin nodded. “Excellent, Loki.”

“Thank you, Father,” Loki said smoothly, like it was a trivial thing.

But Thor knew that Loki was beaming inside from the rare compliment.

Once their mother stopped scolding them about hurting each other for fun and their father was distracted by the food arriving, Loki turned and looked at Thor, smiling while he mouthed the words, “Thank you.”


End file.
